Hello peeps. Today I’m giving birth to a blog post about Twitter born out of frustration. I know there’s a million of these posts out there, but obviously there aren’t enough because idiots keep being stupid. Yes, I know it’s an idiot’s job to be stupid, but can’t you please be a little less stupid even if it’s only sometimes? You are doing my head in! This morning, one of these idiots who works for none other than Morons Incorporated, tweeted me. How is that offensive, you might ask? I’ll break it down and you can decide for yourselves.

The background on our relationship:

I had never met this person before

He wasn’t following me

I wasn’t following him

He has never RT’d me or said hello

What could he possibly tweet me that inspired me to do a blog post? This:

Which he had apparently been directly tweeting everyone else non-stop. That’s all this guy tweets, and it’s known as SPAM (in case I haven’t been clear). After receiving my reply — Are you serious? I don’t know you, we don’t follow each other. You need to learn some manners & how to use Twitter #notcool — he actually managed to tweet an original tweet: one of his first ever! What I need is compassionate and understanding fellow authors who are willing to help eachother. Thanks, anyway.

My heart bleeds for you, it really does. Someone hand me a tissue before I drown in tears.

I had to reply, of course: I help authors who get to know me before they ask for favours. There are ways to do things — not that he will ever get it. I think he’s been working at Morons Incorporated far too long.

It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again: get to know people on Twitter before you ask for favours, or RT them, they may just RT you back. Pretend that it’s like real life and you actually have to be polite to someone and not think the world owes you favours left, right and centre. When you do it as this guy did, you just shit people and then they have to waste time doing blog posts about how much you shit them, and then they report you for spam 🙂 (that smile represents the satisfaction I felt doing that this morning). Ok, I think it’s out of my system. So, if you see anyone on Twitter who is from Morons Incorporated, maybe tell them to visit my blog so they can receive some good advice. They probably won’t take it, but we’ll all feel better that they’ve at least been told.

32 responses to “Twitter Idiots at it Again — Somebody Save Me!”

I usually just ignore the morons, but I’m glad you take the time to try and reason with them. Why people think I’m just sitting around my computer waiting expectantly to hear about their book/blog/Facebook page (that, of course, needs likes) is beyond me. It seems they really do think this, though. Things like this lessen my hope for humanity every day.

I hate people like that. Someone spammed me about a diet book or something she was hocking, and I let her know I wasn’t happy about it. All for the same reasons you got upset. She said, ”I’m just trying to get to know people here.” I told her that trying to get me to buy something was not ”getting to know me” and I was more apt to want to buy something if the person selling took two seconds to say Hi before pitching me. Of course she stopped following me, which made me cry…deep down where nobody could see…..NOT!

“What I need is compassionate and understanding fellow authors who are willing to help each other. Thanks, anyway.”

So, he needs compassionate and understanding fellow authors who are willing to help each other. Okay, well, why wasn’t there even ONE tweet for a fellow author in his tweet history? Why was every single tweet nothing more than a plea to random strangers to help? Where is the understanding that helping one another is a two-way street?

I don’t know if this was the same guy who tweeted me, but the exact same deal: “My book is awesome, pls RT @Spartagus” And I was like…uh…no. That’s the second time he did it so I blocked him. Then I ranted about it (momentarily)…it’s very annoying. I’ve spent a long time building up a small group of trusted friends and contacts on twitter and they’ve earned my time and my retweets. Just showing up and saying plz…without actually attempting to engage me in any way means you’re just using me. And I refuse to be anyone’s TwitterMonkey. lol 🙂 Great post Dionne. Wish I’d thought of confronting him too. D’oh!

You’re just too nice, Gareth :). But I’m glad you blocked him. I blocked and reported him for spam. And I agree with you; we’ve all spent a lot of time meeting and getting to know like-minded people who we get along with and I have no time or patience for selfish morons who wouldn’t even think to reciprocate or be polite enough to just say ‘hi’.

Dionne, if Mr. Moron would have taken the time to get to know you he would have found your friendship to be warm and genuine. He also would never have asked for you to promote his book, because you would have already done it out of friendship without him asking. 🙂

Fellow writers, who are professional writers, respect and value each other and each other’s time. It’s only a community when you’re invited in, and he’s probably had more than one door slammed in his face.

I’ve dealt with people like this before and it’s frustrating. I love helping others, but at least introduce yourself and say “hello” first, right? I have people SPAM me all of the time with “hey, listen to single” or “I want to be on your radio show, here’s the link to my book.,” etc. This Microwave Society doesn’t want to put in the work to network properly and generate relationships. So sad.

Thanks for visiting the blog :). The silly thing with these people is that if they just took a few minutes to be civil, we’d all help them. I like that term “Microwave Society” I haven’t heard it before. It sums them up perfectly!

I think the key to acquaintance is interaction not transaction. But our first world culture has been sped up by the media we use (140 characters is not knowing someone) so more for less and social awkwardness seem to be de rigeur with snap judgments and a “shit before you reach the pot” menatlity – tl;DR translation: entitlement.

It is sad to see, especially from a wordsmith. If an author did not understand this process then, judging as a craftsman, I would assume the writing would be subpar. I would not read it knowing nothing else because the relationship to the audience I would assume to be the same as the approach to sell: one-night-stand approach to “relationship.”

That does not mean that simply following someone means a relationship exists. Or that having followers means a relationship with them. The term is interaction. Following or unfollowing has about as much interaction impact as passing signs from a train window. However, sitting in the seat next to someone and having a conversaation makes more of an impact. Tl;DR translation: drop the Facebook body count.

I am glad you interacted with the person – and took the time to do it. Sad, if it was a stress or simple venting. I think sincere interaction speaks well of you and is an example to others. There is power in it.

Unfortunately, with these kinds of people, I’ve found that being super polite gets you nowhere. I’ve taken time to explain to a couple of other how they can go about getting support but they thank you then continue on their merry way without changing anything. I could have been nicer, I suppose, but sometimes being nice is ineffective. Funny you should mention the likely quality of his book. A friend read some of it and confirmed there were at least ten typos in the first paragraph, so your assessment was correct.

Good morning to you Dionne,
Focusing on changing others is a losing proposition I leave to priests and lawmakers. Some people will learn at their speed and according to their style over time, and others won’t learn. If I feel negative energy in such situations then I am neglecting myself or I am too invested in a master-pupil relationship. I own these feelings and I back away politely at a point that costs me nothing.

I believe we would all be happy to promote others if we feel we are important enough to help them in the process. That is a nice compliment to us. What is unflattering to believe is that we are numbers tossed around in a bingo drum. Some of these “idiots” are that way because they do not understand that.

I also want the people who will buy what I am selling to be confident that I have not sold out either their trust or my integrity in the process. But that may be just me and I am okay with that.

Don’t let these “idiots” get you down. You’re worth more than their actions give you credit.

Argh! I had someone on Twitter tweet me for the first time and commend me for my great manners. He said it was sadly lacking on Twitter. I thanked him for the compliment, then he sent me back a tweet with links to buy his books…LOL. So much for good manners!

I tried to give advice to someone who auto-tweeted me a link to his book when I followed him (tweet not DM). I politely told him that’s not an effective marketing tactic, to which he replied ‘any publicity is good publicity’. I said not if it makes people unfollow you, which is what many people do, to which his reply was to unfollow me.

It was politely offered advice, I wasn’t attacking him, merely trying to helpfully point out something he might not know. He was clearly an idiot, because anyone with half a brain would have figured out that someone with twenty times the number of followers he has must be doing something right…